Installation services of communications equipment

Tender description

Cornwall Council seeks suitably experienced and accredited contractors to build, own and operate 30+Mbps superfast broadband services and infrastructure in Cornwall. The required completion date for all contracted work is the end of September 2022. Interested parties must have submitted their formal expression of interest documentation, as instructed within the ITT guidance document, as well as having signed up to the associated code of conduct, within 4 weeks of the date of this notice being sent for publication, in order to be eligible to submit a bid. The relevant documentation and all formal communications or queries, including the submission of the aforementioned documentation, regarding this opportunity, must only be accessed or made via the supplyingthesouthwest.org.uk portal under project reference DN451932. Public sector investment of up to a total of GBP 5 350 000 is expected to be sourced from the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) programme for 2014 to 2020 in England and Cornwall Council. Further additional funding of up to GBP 3 000 000, from ESIF, Central Government (e.g. DCMS, DEFRA) and Cornwall Council, could potentially become available during the lifetime of the project. An open market review to establish existing and planned (next 3 years) commercial coverage of broadband services across Cornwall by all existing, and any prospective, superfast broadband infrastructure providers, was undertaken during between August and September 2019. This has helped to identify the Intervention Area in scope for further investment, which was then subject to a further Public Consultation process, which concluded during early May 2020. Cornwall Council has also undertaken a separate market engagement exercise to obtain feedback on proposed funding models and any possible procurement lotting strategy. Cornwall Council continues to work closely with BDUK towards the successful conclusion of this process utilising approved BDUK procurement templates and evaluation processes etc. with the intention being to improve and increase connectivity to as many eligible commercial and domestic premises, as possible, within the available funding, with Superfast 3 aiming to increase access to 2 700 premises, including 546 business, as a minimum requirement, by the end of September 2022.